Dr who sued hospital and failed to foot legal bill

A FORMER Gympie Hospital doctor who unsuccessfully sued Queensland Health and another doctor for defamation will have to pay their legal costs.

Dr Navin Naidoo started action against the hospital in 2013 when he was no longer working there after a doctor at the hospital sent a notification to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency about an interaction with Dr Naidoo when, as a GP, he sent a patient to hospital.

In March Judge John Robertson found Queensland Health and the other doctor had not defamed Dr Naidoo, and today ordered Dr Naidoo to pay the costs.

"It is the plaintiff, who for quite irrational reasons, has been responsible for republishing what he alleges is seriously damaging material to a large number of individuals and entities," he said.

"The law presumes that a plaintiff has a good reputation and that damage to that reputation would follow from publication of defamatory material, however, here it is the plaintiff himself who has published and republished the information about which he complains."